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Individual $50.00 USD Couple $100.00 USD For a Teacher $58.00 USD

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If you’d like to donate an item or items for the auction, please use our downloadable form and return a copy to the Blake Amos, our family coordinator, at PS 8.

Photo credits to Minuette Le and Maddy Schwartzman.

How many PS 8 classes were involved in the painting of the murals?
All of them. Yikes, we worked with over 550 students in one day.

How did you decide what to paint?
The murals were generated by how students filled in 8 and a half by 11 papers we provided asking for students’ views of friendship and collaboration. We passed out a cute page – with a frame and a pencil person – that said, “Draw a picture of friendship and collaboration.” The talking pencil person was designed by a Parsons student in a prior year . . . and was cute enough to make the kids want to fill in the frames!

Have you done things like this before at PS 8?
Yes, many things. We’ve been working at PS 8 since the 2008-09 school year. We’ve done sets for the play three times. We’ve made analytical plant growing devices with the third grade – some students did periscopes in which a plant sat and could receive only indirect light. That was a project that involved growing plants in unique situations and analysis and measurement with a heavy design component. Another time we made collaborative books about local history – like the Battle of Brooklyn, Walt Whitman, Robert Fulton, and the Underground Railroad. We made stop-motion animation, puppets and then we once did a battle reenactment with Ms. G including a script and costumes made out of Trader Joe’s bags and other recycled materials.

We’ve always worked at the school for four or five weeks, on Thursday only; one year we taught the third to fifth grades. We’ve scaled back from that.

Do you plan to work with PS 8 more this year?
Yes! Starting March 1st we and our same group of 36 Parsons students will collaborate with the whole third grade making Rube Goldberg machines – playful overly-complicated force and motion contraptions, like the game Mousetrap but more fun – designed to perform simple tasks and made out of household items. Our Parsons students will build their own Rube Goldberg machines and show them to the PS 8 students; the PS 8 students will then be inspired to make their own machines. For the Parsons students it’s an amazing opportunity to be on the other side of the fence – to share their design knowledge and invent teaching tools, pre-fabricated parts and accessible handouts. For the PS 8 students it’s an opportunity to design three-dimensionality, to think outside of the box, to engage in something very “in” in contemporary art, and to realize the potential of just about any household material as they work through design project that has to accomplish something. There’s so much potential in a plastic cup – so many magical things can come out of simple stuff.

How did you make the mural project happen?
I make films and videos, so I’ve gotten used to accomplishing giant tasks with big crews in a very short amount of time. I find it incredibly satisfying to have a big task like that, and then get it done. My co-teacher Emily, who is new to PS 8, has worked with the Guggenheim and kids for many years, so she brought a lot of experience to the project.

When I learned we weren’t going to be working on the set for the play this year, I went and talked to Principal Phillips and Mr. Mikos about what we might do instead and I suggested a mural. Principal Phillips responded that a mural “would be great; how about something about friendship and collaboration?” Our first Thursday at the school, small groups of students from our two 36-person Parsons sections went class to class and asked students to discuss and draw their vision of friendship and collaboration. Students drew hundreds of pictures – some holding hands, hugs, words like “trust.” Over the next week, the Parsons students made lay-outs based on the PS 8 students’ drawings. When they got to school on the second Thursday, they had about a half hour to mount the paper and to take their drawings and thoughts and put them on paper for the murals. Then at 10:30, the students started coming: Mr. Mikos scheduled four classes every half hour to come and help paint the murals. It was organized chaos.

What do you hope people who participated in painting got out of the experience?
From my Parsons students’ point of view, it’s about how something they usually do individually is brought out into the world, and the joy in collaboration. For PS 8, it’s about this giant communal project, and everyone having the idea that the entire school is working on one thing. How many times do we do something as the whole PS 8 community? We pass by the same walls but we don’t focus on the same things. It’s kind of magical now with the murals.

What do you hope people looking at the painting get out of the experience?
I think again it’s community: the community sees community. It’s also a window on the kids’ thinking, and about the power of art, the transformation of space. More than anything, though, is the idea of community, not only in imagery, but in action.

What exactly is the class you and Ms. Lambert co-teach at Parsons?
It’s a foundation course for students entering Parsons called “The Lab” and it is designed to engage the students in both design and New York City. This is the second semester of Lab. There are more than 450 students in the class, and they get to choose their sections based on five topics. Our section is called “Get Involved” and takes students into the larger community to work on design projects.

Have you done projects like this at other schools?
No, not me personally. We have done similar things at the New York Aquarium, and not with children but for children.

How long will the mural be up?
I don’t know. It may have to do with the life of the tape and the paper.

Do you hope to do something like this again at PS 8?
Why not? I like big projects! I like making a contribution to our community and my children’s school. It’s a win/win collaboration.

By Ansley Samson

Mark Morris Dance Group at BAM
Two orchestra level seats for the opening night of the Mark Morris Dance Group at BAM (Brooklyn Academy of Music). The performance is on Thursday, March 1 at 7.30p at the BAM Howard Gilman Opera House. Tickets valued at $36 each. More details at BAM.org

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Big Time Rush Movie Premier
Exclusive Big Time Movie Premier, March 8th. Get two tickets to the VIP private event, movie screening and possible opportunity to meet the band. This Big Time Movie presents the first ever movie from Nickelodeon stars, Big Time Rush. Set in London, a zany BTR adventure takes place in the vein of a madcap James Bond film. It’s Help! meets a G-rated Austin Powers.

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Children’s Film Festival Tickets
Three tickets to the first New York screening of the new Disneynature film from the award-winning directors of Earth at the New York International Children’s Film Festival on Saturday, March 10 at 2.00p at Symphony Space on the Upper West Side. Sumptuously shot in the rain forests of Africa, Chimpanzee tells the true-life story of an adorable young chimp named Oscar.

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Somewhere in the world is a cliff. A big, steep, dark rock. As slanted as a clock hand.  I think that is a dangerous place to live. When I look up I see a sky full of clouds. When I look down I can see the water daring me to jump in. Somewhere in the world there is a cliff.  – Yakirah Dazzel

Somewhere in the world there’s a Gulf.  With green land and blue water.  You can see the beautiful water as soothing as laying down with your mom tickling your back.  You see trees swaying while the water is laying.  It’s a friendly environment to be in.  You can go swimming or you can go plant something.  You can find anything on a Gulf.  A Gulf is a nice place to be.  You can trust a Gulf.  A Gulf is a good heart.  Somewhere in the world there’s a Gulf.  – Mali Jackson

Somewhere in the world there is an island.  The water is warm.  The air blew cool in my face. I see the waves rolling. I see fish swimming in the water. I hear the trees shaking. I taste salt warm water on my tongue. I feel the sand blowing. I see the cloud moving with the wind. I hear the frog talking.  Somewhere in the world there is an island.  –  Louis Hagopian

Somewhere in the world there is a geyser.  That shoots insanely boiling water into the sky.  If it shoots you it will hurt like a hot oven.  Steam and water comes out and water it left on the ground.  Looking at it standing in place peacefully.  It first began in the ground and ended peacefully on the ground.  Somewhere in the world there is a geyser.  – Andrew Erdei

Somewhere in the world there’s a hill.  Soft, smooth and kind.  That hill wants to be your friend.  It can be happy, sad or even cool.  I think that hill will be the best friend you ever had.  That hill always lets you lay on it, play on it and you could even tell it your secret and it will tell you there’s.  Somewhere in the world there’s a hill.  – Carolina Rodriguez

Somewhere in the world there is waterfall.  It is cool and shady.  The rough water is cool and refreshing.  I see gold fish swimming.  It sound’s like a vase falling.  It feels cold like an ice cube.  The waterfall is full of life.  It’s very soggy.  Somewhere in the world there is a waterfall.  – Ace Fernandez

Check out the photos and a short video below (click on any photo for a larger image).  And continue reading the story (below the photos) of our very own, award-winning PS 8 Robotics team.

PS 8’s “Mission Masters” and “AstroKnights” were among more than 40 teams of Brooklyn elementary and middle schoolers competing at Polytechnic Institute of New York University on Saturday, January 14. Each team had four chances for its pre-programmed LEGO robot to navigate a complicated course and complete tasks related to this year’s theme, food safety. Using kits purchased from the FIRST LEGO League, PS 8’s teams practiced twice a week throughout the fall and winter building and programming their robots, managing their robots through tasks, and reviewing strategy. Teams score points for each task completed successfully and lose points for handling their robots when they should be functioning independently. Teams receive awards for their robots’ performances, as well as their mechanical design, programming design, and strategy and innovation in their design (among other things).

As part of the FIRST LEGO League competition, teams were also required to present a research project based on the year’s theme.  Together PS 8’s team decided upon the topic of oysters. Team members researched how oysters end up on our plates and may become contaminated in this process, and then developed a potential robotic solution to prevent contamination in oysters to be eaten – a truck that was able to detect and separate contaminated oysters from edible oysters.  The team will work more on this research project and present it again to judges at the citywide competition.

In addition to practicing for the FIRST LEGO League’s citywide finals in March, the Robotics team hopes to organize an assembly later in the year to introduce the PS 8 community as a whole to some of their robotics work. Details remain to be worked out, but the assembly might involve a demonstration of the team’s robots at work on the FIRST LEGO competition course as well as its oyster research project. The team holds tryouts every September and is planning on balancing the genders of the team by accepting more girls next year. For more information, you can read about the Robotics team.

For more information about the recent FIRST LEGO League competition in Brooklyn, you can read a press release from Polytechnic Institute at New York University, and you can read an article in the New York Times.

By Ansley Samson

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